


one girl in all the world

by Wildehack (Tyleet)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Buffy Wishverse, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:38:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2508128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How do you know the other world is any better than this?"<br/>"Because it has to be."</p>
            </blockquote>





	one girl in all the world

**Author's Note:**

> agent-amador asked for a world where buffy and faith were happy and no one dies, not even once.
> 
> Please do not copy or repost my work on any other site, even if it is credited under my name. I do not give permission to have my work hosted on any site except AO3.

Someone could wish the whole world different, if she really tried. You could have a world without shrimp, or a world with nothing but shrimp. You could even make a world where everyone was happy, and no one died, not even once. In this world, Buffy Summers does not drown at sixteen.   
  
She never comes to Sunnydale at all. Instead her mother takes her to Cleveland, where she walks into the guidance counselor's office only to discover that Diana Dormer is her new Watcher. She doesn't make friends easily, and Diana does not encourage her.  
  
Incidentally, Faith also moves to Cleveland, her mother drawn there from Boston by some pull she can't explain. Faith finds out about vampires a week after Buffy transfers into her high school, when she's almost sucked dry by the substitute teacher, who was supposedly dead. "Actually dead," says the blonde girl who saves her, dusting off her hands. "It's a whole undead thing."   
  
Faith rubs at her neck, stares at the pile of dust, the broken ruler in the new girl's hand. "Show me how to do that," Faith orders.   
  
"Uh, you can't," the new girl says, gold and powerful and perfect. "There's only me. One girl in all the world. That's how the story goes."   
  
Faith spends the rest of her time obsessively finding out everything she can about vampires, about Buffy Summers. She learns about fire, beheading, stakes to the heart. She learns that Buffy always wears a cross necklace, that she misses California, that she loves ice skating and designer shoes. She learns about werewolves and prophecies and the soft halo of Buffy's hair in daylight. She shows up in the guidance counselor's office and slams a copy of Vampyr onto the desk, demanding answers. Diana gives her a cool look, and then decides to tell her everything. (She is a ruthless but practical woman. She sees no harm in training a Potential along with the Slayer, so long as neither girl finds out the truth.)   
  
Buffy turns around and finds Faith everywhere--trailing after her on patrol, sitting at the edge of Diana's desk during training, inviting herself along for dinner. Eventually Buffy softens, and then it's Buffy and Faith skipping class to smoke behind the girl’s bathroom, sharing secrets. Buffy and Faith dancing at high school parties, bodies perfectly in sync. Buffy dragging Faith to the mall where they shoplift red red lipstick and put it on in the front seat of Joyce’s car, both of them pressing dark kisses to the rearview mirror. They’re best friends.

Faith is there the day Buffy gets that scar. Buffy is there the day Faith’s mom is rushed to the hospital and has to get her stomach pumped. Faith grips her hand so tightly in the hospital waiting room that even Buffy’s hand turns white. They fight over a boy, but neither one of them really like him all that much. The fight ends with a yelling match in an alley, both of them covered in vampire ash, and then Faith dropping her stake so she can reach out and kiss Buffy. Buffy kisses her back, smearing grave dust across Faith’s cheekbone with one golden thumb. They’re teenage girls in love. They go to school on a hellmouth (it’s right under the girl’s bathroom, actually.) Of course it’s hell, and of course they’re happy. 

  
This isn’t how the story ends. But you know that. Let’s leave it here for now.


End file.
